KEXP at Trans Musicales: Moon Gogo

This week, we continue sharing our discoveries from the Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France, where last December we captured twelve exclusive sessions. We’re sharing with you one unique session each Friday, and you can watch all the previously released ones here. This week, we present a French-Korean fusion with Nantes duo Moon Gogo:

DJ Morgan says of meeting the band during our third day of recording:

The first band of the day was something of a mystery to us leading up to the festival. With few recorded videos available online and just two song clips coming in at a minute and a half each, all we knew about Moon Gogo was that the band featured two members – French musician Frederico Pellegrini on vocals, guitar, and electronics and E’Joung-Ju from South Korea on the traditional Korean 6-stringed instrument called a geomungo. As soon as they started sound checking, we knew we were in for something really cool and unique. The only way I can think to describe their sound is dark folk/blues fusion on Frederico’s side and hypnotic acoustic trip hop rhythms (I know that sounds crazy, but like I said, it was unique) on E’Joung-Ju’s side provided by the geomungo. The result of the fusion of their styes makes for a mesmerizing set of cyclical melodies. In short, it was great and I can’t wait to listen back to the session again. Fun fact: I talked to Frederico after the performance and found out that he has played Trans Musicales a couple other times in the last 25 years – the first time in 1991 where his old band, The Little Rabbits, actually opened for Nirvana who were also on the festival lineup that year.

Watch our live session below with Moon Gogo, recorded in the rotunda of the Rennes Opera House, and be sure to find more about the band on their Facebook page.